I was not a huge fan of this book, unfortunately. I really wanted to like it, truly I did, but it was not meant to be. This review is going to be a bit more of a rant than some of my other reviews might be, filled with tangential stuff that isn’t completely related to the plot, but thats what this space is for right? For me to give my honest opinions about books. It is a long one, so be prepared, and if you liked this book, please don’t take what I say personally. This is really my opinion.
Let me state my rating off the bat – this book is a 2.5/5 for me. I will first list some of my thoughts here, mostly the pros and a couple of the cons, and then I will go into more depth.
Pros: the concept is adorable; I love a good friends-to-more book because that is my real life and it gives me the feels. I like seeing science in books, especially when represented by female characters. The best friend, Esther, is a great best friend and everyone should aspire to have someone like her in their lives. There was not a lot of the super cliched high school drama/stress. Iris’s parents seemed cool.
Cons: the nicknames. The references to info-dumping as “wiki mode” (I don’t know why but it bugged me). Referring to some psychological principals as biological principals (yes I understand there is crossover and you can make a case that psychology is biological but I have specific points). I just have issues with the miscommunication trope in general – the idea that everything could be solved if people just talked to each other really can grate on me.
Now here is what truly got me: Nonverbal Learning Disorder, hereafter referred to as NVLD. This is not a thing. I understand the research behind making it a thing, I understand the push to make it a thing, but IT IS NOT CURRENTLY A THING. Before I go into more about why this really made me so angry, let me give what my credentials are to make these claims, because I think it is only fair that I back up what I am trying to say with facts and not just my opinion. I have an undergraduate degree in psychology and sociology. I am actively pursuing a Masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling to then go on and get my PhD. I have taken a class called Diagnosis and Treatment Planning where the textbook was the DSM-5 and we had to diagnose “people” through case vignettes as homework assignments and our final, and once I am licensed when I graduate I will be allowed to diagnose my clients. (As an aside, I received a 100.5% in this class.) During this class I found an ERROR in the DSM-5 about actual diagnostic criteria for Bipolar II Disorder, and during my Thanksgiving break I wrote a formal proposal to the American Psychiatric Association (aka the people who publish the DSM) to fix said error. They sent me an email back confirming I was correct and that it had been caught a few years before actually and it would be fixed in the DSM-5-TR update that comes out in March 2022, and it was an erroneous error in my copy of the DSM. I have spent countless hours reading research about different mental health disorders my entire life – for fun – and this is my life’s work. You do not have to take what I say as truth, psychology is a living field and I can never know everything. But, I can say what I know about this topic at the time of me writing this post.
First, I understand that Iris has been pulled from some of the author’s experiences with her daughter, and I want to make it very clear that I am not trying to attack her daughter, or her experiences. Everyone is different and experiences the world differently. However, you cannot be diagnosed officially with something that doesn’t exist in the DSM, it just doesn’t work that way. I have had this conversation with people about Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria – it is not an official diagnosis so you cannot be diagnosed with it. The symptoms that you present with can fall under categories of other disorders, and if you want official treatment then you need to accept a diagnosis of one of those. This does not invalidate the experiences you are having, and all feelings are valid, but you can’t say you have something that doesn’t “exist” – which was part of what I had emailed the APA about. When I started this book I immediately thought Iris was Autistic; I was so excited to see Autistic representation in a book that was being marketed as a love story that seemed super cute. But then a diagnosis came up that I had literally never heard of, and so I did some research. It is being pushed to be included in the DSM as there are many reasons why it should be its own thing, but as many of the symptoms overlap with other disorders, and there is not clear diagnostic criteria right now, it is not possible to diagnose someone with this. So for the entirety of the book I was put-off by the idea that Iris had a disorder that could have been a great representation of Autism but instead was feeding into the idea that if you have xyz symptoms you have this other disorder. Also, when I was looking into NVLD it didn’t even seem to match a lot of what Iris was presenting in the book so it made me even more confused when it seemed that the author really knew a lot about this disorder. Also there was reference to Asperger’s Syndrome (which doesn’t exist anymore, it is just Autism Spectrum Disorder, the guy it is named after was a terrible human and Autistic people hate that name) so that wasn’t cool.
Next, the fact that the American Psychiatric Association was written as the American Psychological Association just kinda bugged me. Like, its not a huge deal, objectively its pretty minor, but when you are discussing so much biology and psychology it feels important to get this right. Also, Iris just infodumping about biology but not seeming to differentiate between biology and psychology was annoying to me – she clearly has a high intellect and it just seems hard to believe that she just groups everything together. Also, she has worked this hard to get to where she is with understanding social situations, how is it that she is completely misunderstanding her best friends now? How is it that this is the time that they are unable to communicate with her in a way she understands? How come this is the point that Seth can’t figure out that he needs to be blunt with her since apparently that is the only way she understands social cues? I understand that the misunderstanding trope is fun and all but it just doesn’t seem believable to me when you have someone who has clearly worked for 16 years to understand social situations and is just blatantly ignoring them now. Either she has been overly sheltered or her friends don’t actually want to help her OR she is being intentionally obtuse, in which case I don’t particularly care or want to root for her.
Having watched my cousin who is Autistic and has prosopagnosia (face blindness), along with other cognitive disorders, grow up and learn how to deal with social situations, I just have a hard time believing that Iris can be this obtuse. My cousin struggles and has struggled for a very long time, but he has many of the same traits as Iris (info dumping or “wiki mode,” not understanding social cues, overloading with too much stimuli, etc.), but he has managed to function through a lot of help from us and therapy. The fact that it seems like Iris is kind of left out to dry also annoys me and makes me feel like either she is exaggerating her symptoms (which is doubtful and also feels very much like victim blaming) or that the people she is around are coddling her too much. I just have such a hard time with the way she acts in this book, and the way everyone else was acting around her, that I don’t know if anything else in the plot could really hold up or make up for it.
If you loved this book, great – I am so happy for you, please don’t let this color your feelings. If you have a book that has a similar plot that I might like better – PLEASE let me know as I loved this concept and I really wanted to like this book. If you are the author, I am sorry I tore this apart, it isn’t personal I swear. I just really have a hard time with certain concepts that are important to me.
Ok rant done.